


Let the Winds of Dawn

by twobirdsonesong



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Drabble, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-20 13:02:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twobirdsonesong/pseuds/twobirdsonesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Healing happens in steps, but not the ones you might expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let the Winds of Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> So, I worried about writing this, and posting this, and I still worry about it. I don't want to be seen as somehow, in some way, profiting from or piggybacking off a tragedy, especially not when using a medium as contentious as rpf. But everyone deals with loss - any loss - in their own way. This is one of mine.

Healing is like this.

 

It’s sitting at a kitchen table at nine thirty in the morning with cups of coffee and a crossword puzzle neither of them are filling out.

 

It’s early yet in the week and the clues are easy, should be easy, but the boxes blur together and the ink doesn’t make any sense at all.  And where did all the pens go?  Really, it’s a just a stopgap anyway.

 

He looks up, looks across the table and finds limp hair, slumped shoulders, dark eyes.  The coffee is cold between them and the sun has been shining for hours already.

 

“I think I should eat something.”

           

“When was the last time you did?”

 

He pauses, thinks.  There’s something in fridge he doesn’t remember buying, and crumbs on the table from whenever he last had the compulsion to eat.

 

“Let me make you some eggs.”

 

“All right.”

 

\--

 

It’s ignoring a phone call because the sound of his voice is too much to handle.

 

He watches the phone vibrate on the table, screen lighting up with a photo and a name, but he can’t make himself reach for it.  He’d called five minutes before, and he couldn’t answer it then either.  He doesn’t know what he’s afraid to hear – other voices in the background, laughter, clinking glasses and scraping utensils.  Or nothing at all.

 

The TV is on, and so is the radio in the kitchen, and his laptop has been playing the same soundtrack for three hours.  And none of it drowns out the buzz of the phone against the wooden table.

 

\--

 

It’s watching him get dressed.

 

Buttons and zippers and careful cuffs.  A ring from the bottom of a box.  Each tiny movement is practiced, precise.  And he only sees the fine tremor in those long fingers because he knows to look for it.  He knows what it _should_ look like, what normal is for him, and how unsteady he actually is.

 

“You don’t have to.”

 

“I do.”

 

And he does.  It’s who he is.  They both know it.  At least, even now, some things are constant.

 

“Will you at least-”

 

“Yeah.”

 

He doesn’t know what he meant to ask, but despite it all, even with everything else that is so much more important, he still answers the unfinished question.

 

\--

 

It’s reaching for the vodka in the cabinet because the ice is ready in the freezer and it’s what he does when it’s getting past too late and he still can’t sleep.

 

And then finding the bottle smashed in the sink without realizing it had left his hands.  Shards of glass glitter against the stainless steal and sharp, sterile scent of alcohol burns.  His eyes water.  He grips the edge of the counter, bows his head, and breathes.

 

\--

 

It’s waking up in the middle of the night two months after with tears on his cheeks and salt in his mouth.

 

Breathing too deeply to try and stop it, he blinks at the dark wall and sees a faded, broken choir room.  He thinks he was dreaming another kind of question.

 

“Why?”

 

The cool night doesn’t answer, but he does, voice deep and knowing, somehow awake, from the other pillow.

 

“Because.”

 

Because everything and nothing.  Because life _is_ and is _not_ and there will never be an explanation that doesn’t taste like bile.

 

He shifts into warm arms and tries to sleep once more.

 

\--

 

It’s finally moving a few emails to a folder, but not deleting them.  Maybe not ever.

 

It’s rereading the last few texts and not deleting those either.

 

\--

 

It’s the decision to go outside.

 

Inside the house it’s safe.  Controllable.  Secure.  Walls and doors and a staircase with an end.  A cat that can’t leave.  Outside is endless, fractured.  Wide open space beyond sight.  He’d closed the windows.  Kept everything contained.  The mail piles up and he doesn’t care.  He’s home, but he’s not there.  He doesn’t know where he is, but he doesn’t want to bring outside things in, or let inside things dissipate into nothing.

 

He worries about his blood and marrow, his skin and bones, if he moves beyond the threshold, what will happen to him if he goes a step too far.

 

He opens the door.

 

\--

 

It’s calling the number back.

 

“Can you come over?”

 

“Yeah.”


End file.
